When the skies turn gray and the wind gets cold you might want to consider putting down that extremely serious or outright scary book and take a look at some of the more humorous aspects of literature. Putting a little fun between your ears is one of the best ways to make it through the less than optimal part of the year. Here are some suggestions that can take you far away from the ice and snow.
Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris
Go with the author as he undergoes his first colonoscopy and join him and his friends as they pick up garbage along a road in the English countryside and then you can read all about his misadventures with the airline industry. In the hands of a less gifted storyteller, all of these subjects Sedaris chooses to write about would be nothing less than mind numbing but he manages to turn them all into humorous gold.
Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
Though first published in 1938, this satire of sensational journalism seems to grow more relevant with each passing year of our digitized 24/7 news cycle lives. Based in part on Waugh’s own journalistic career, Scoop pokes fun at all the inevitable wrong steps that come with trying to get the story first.
The Most of P.G. Wodehouse by P.G. Wodehouse
Picture the oak paneled walls and leather chairs of the upper class English gentleman’s club of days gone by and stir in more than a little oddball humor and you have the expansive and very funny world created by Wodehouse. This is the writer who gave us the hapless Bertie Wooster and his genius butler Jeeves and who influenced many writers and comics through the years. With this collection of Wodehouse’s work you also get to meet other luminary comic characters like Mr. Mulliner and Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge.
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
This book that deals with the human condition, as Vonnegut saw it, isn’t exactly a knee slapper but, it does have an overall humorous approach of capturing average people trying to cope with modern life. It also showcases Vonnegut’s uncluttered writing style even through some bizarre narrative twists and turns.
Bech: A Book by John Updike
Updike is mostly remembered for his unblinking look at the complex relationships between the sexes and their offspring and the emotional baggage that piles up between them over time. Non prolific writer and ladies’ man Henry Bech marked a humorous departure for Updike and, more than likely, his story documented some of the author’s behind the scenes life.
